It bears repeating: Just because you happen to make an amazing, perfectly-crafted, wildly funny movie (Fargo), doesn't mean you can do whatever the hell you want in your follow-up and pass it off as art.

The Big Lebowski is the definitive answer to skeptics like me who wondered if Fargo was the fluke, and sort-of-okay flicks like The Hudsucker Proxy were more the norm for the Coen brothers. They undoubtedly are. In The Big Lebowski, the Coens had the world to play with as a palette. What they delivered is a wreck.

The story, what little there is of one, follows Jeff "The Dude" Lebowski (Bridges), a bum/amateur bowler who gets caught up in a kidnapping-gone-wrong scheme involving a millionaire who happens to have the same name. Promising premise (even if it sounds familiar...), but the story is totally blown on one-dimensional goofball characters, blind side plots that go nowhere, and a meandering plotline that barely keeps you awake.

Sure, with characters like Goodman's Vietnam vet/wacked-out bowling buddy, Moore's new age "vaginal" artist, and, most memorably, John Turturro's minuscule role as Jesus, the most flamboyant bowler alive, there is plenty to be amused by in the film, and sometimes it's absolutely riotous. But the laughs are hollow... because the story just sits there like a 7-10 split.

I wish the Coens the best, but they're going to have to do better than this. I know they can.